The Threat to the Boundary Waters

Even in a state known for its beautiful lakes and waters, people know that Minnesota’s Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness is something special.

The waters are near-pristine. Old trees loom in the area. Timber wolves, deer and bears make their home in the area. And the watershed offers important habitat for birds and riparian wildlife species.1

The appeal of this unique area isn’t just local either: this beautiful place is the most visited wilderness area in the entire US.2

Worse — unless we make our voices heard — the administration seems likely to approve new sulfide ore mining on the very doorstep of this incredibly special place. Such operations would virtually guarantee dangerous mining pollution in these now-near-pristine waters.4

How You Can Help

Earlier this year, more than 18,000 conservation-minded Environmental Action supporters called for permanent protections from such mining activities.5 But with the Trump Administration seemingly still allowing mine permitting and review to continue,6 it’s time for us to step up the pressure to stop these mines and protect this special place.

Adding your name today helps in a couple of important ways:

Your signature will let President Trump know that you care about protecting the Boundary Waters — and that you don’t want them sacrificed to pollution from new mining nearby; and

You’ll help raise public awareness about the threat to this special place and grow the movement to protect this special place. The more people we have talking about the need to protect the Boundary Waters, the more successful we’ll be in this campaign.

Today is a great day to make a difference for a truly special, wild American place. Please take just a couple of moments to add your name now.

]]>Social Shares for the Environment: Week of August 10, 2018https://environmental-action.org/blog/social-shares-august-10-2018/
Fri, 10 Aug 2018 17:09:52 +0000https://environmental-action.org/?p=4566Each week, we highlight key stories from the week, and present them as social shares. Share any or all of these posts to mobilize your friends and family to join you in the campaign to safeguard our clean air and water, wildlife, wild places and environment.

]]>Each week, we highlight key stories from the week, and present them as social shares. Share any or all of these posts to mobilize your friends and family to join you in the campaign to safeguard our clean air and water, wildlife, wild places and environment.

Facebook Social Shares

Twitter Social Shares

Dicamba drifts — and its destruction of non-targeted plants is a huge threat to pollinators like honey #bees and monarch #butterflies.

]]>Take action in your town today to stop polystyrene plastic waste!https://environmental-action.org/action/polystyrene-local/
Mon, 06 Aug 2018 13:58:41 +0000https://environmental-action.org/?p=4542Our oceans are choked with plastic, and the animals that live there are suffering for it. Download and print several copies of this letter, and then take them to businesses near you to encourage local businesses to stop using polystyrene.

Last month, a whale died in Thailand after swallowing 17 pounds of plastic. In April, a dead sperm whale washed ashore […]

]]>Our oceans are choked with plastic, and the animals that live there are suffering for it.Download and print several copies of this letter, and then take them to businesses near you to encourage local businesses to stop using polystyrene.

Last month, a whale died in Thailand after swallowing 17 pounds of plastic. In April, a dead sperm whale washed ashore in Spain with 64 pounds of plastic in his stomach.1,2

Birds, fish and sea turtles can also mistake plastic for food — with tragic results.

One of the worst kinds of plastic pollution is something we’ve known for decades we shouldn’t even be using in the first place: polystyrene, what most people call Styrofoam.

A cup made from polystyrene foam might keep our coffee warm for a few minutes, but is that worth the risk to the lives and health of whales and sea turtles? We can live without it, but wildlife often can’t live with it.

Even those of use who don’t live near the ocean can do our part to end the use of polystyrene: Environmental Action supporters across the country have called on governors, Congress, and McDonald’s to protect wildlife by phasing out polystyrene across the country.

But you also can make change right in your own community, by asking the businesses you visit every day — your coffee shop, your local restaurant — to make the right choice for the environment.

]]>A tidal wave of dangerous, destructive dicambahttps://environmental-action.org/action/dicamba-danger/
Fri, 03 Aug 2018 14:25:55 +0000https://environmental-action.org/?p=4511In 2017, Monsanto’s herbicide dicamba cut a path of destruction across millions of acres of farmland and habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators. Researchers expect that twice as much will be sprayed in 2018.1,2

Dicamba Risks Biodiversity
Dicamba harms or kills any plant not specifically treated to resist it. But the problem is, the herbicide doesn’t stay where it’s sprayed. The […]

]]>In 2017, Monsanto’s herbicide dicamba cut a path of destruction across millions of acres of farmland and habitat for monarch butterflies and other pollinators. Researchers expect that twice as much will be sprayed in 2018.1,2

Dicamba Risks Biodiversity

Dicamba harms or kills any plant not specifically treated to resist it. But the problem is, the herbicide doesn’t stay where it’s sprayed. The chemical is volatile, meaning it gets into the air and drifts — with catastrophic effects.

It devastates plants that aren’t treated to withstand it, risking the biodiversity that makes our planet great. Last year, dicamba damaged at least 3.6 million acres of crops. Studies show that its use can harm pollinators like honey bees and monarch butterflies.3,4 According to one report, drifting dicamba will threaten an astounding 12 million acres of monarch habitat in the next year.5

How You Can HelpI

Some researchers expect dicamba use to double this year,6 so need to stop this tidal wave of dicamba before it sweeps across the country, devastating crops and destroying ecosystems in its path.

Arkansas has already banned dicamba for the 2018 growing season. Now it’s time for other states to do the same.

]]>Sharing for Environmental Action: Week of August 3, 2018https://environmental-action.org/blog/sharing-for-environmental-action-august-3-2018/
Fri, 03 Aug 2018 12:33:03 +0000https://environmental-action.org/?p=4505Sharing stories about nature and the environment is a great way to ensure that your friends and family are up-to-speed on the issues that impact the clean air and water, wildlife and wild places we all treasure.

In this week’s shares: the Trump administration’s lion hunting permits, red wolves, who pays for damage on our public lands and more.
Sharing for […]

]]>Sharing stories about nature and the environment is a great way to ensure that your friends and family are up-to-speed on the issues that impact the clean air and water, wildlife and wild places we all treasure.

In this week’s shares: the Trump administration’s lion hunting permits, red wolves, who pays for damage on our public lands and more.

Grand Staircase-Escalante at Risk
Last year, President Trump slashed the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in half. The legal boundaries of the monument may have shrunk, but the entire area remains home to breathtaking landscapes and endangered wildlife.

Grand Staircase-Escalante at Risk

Last year, President Trump slashed the Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument in half. The legal boundaries of the monument may have shrunk, but the entire area remains home to breathtaking landscapes and endangered wildlife.

The difference is: now mining companies can stake claims to develop this precious land. Canadian mining firm Glacier Lake Resources plans to begin a copper mining project in the former Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument this summer.1

Copper is mined in massive open pits, which would forever scar Grand Staircase-Escalante’s amazing landscape. Copper mining leads to pollution that damages rivers and streams and impacts sensitive wildlife.2

Bald eagles and endangered California condors soar over the spires of Grand Staircase-Escalante. The Southwestern willow flycatcher, another of Grand Staircase’s endangered birds, is particularly vulnerable to disruption of the streamside habitat where it makes its nests. Copper extraction could destroy the habitat that these animals depend on to survive.3,4

Mining also poses a threat to priceless fossil deposits. Paleontologists have discovered fossils from 37 previously unknown species in the Grand Staircase-Escalante area. Mining has no place on land that is so rich in nature and natural history — land that by all rights should still enjoy legal protection.5

Mining companies’ short-sighted search for profit could permanently change this incredible place unless we take action now.

How You Can Help

Public lands belong to all of us. Erasing Grand Staircase’s protections opened the door to destructive mining and drilling — and starting now, mining companies are stepping through that door.

The Grand Staircase-Escalante area’s beauty and its wilderness are treasures that have been enjoyed by generations of Americans. This irreplaceable landscape is worth so much more than the minerals that could be torn from its mountainsides.

]]>Amplify Your Voice! Social Media Shares for the Week of July 27, 2018https://environmental-action.org/action/amplify-social-media-july-27-2018/
Fri, 27 Jul 2018 17:17:33 +0000https://environmental-action.org/?p=4463You can amplify the impact of your efforts to protect the environment! Just share any (or all) of these social media posts and spread the word on important issues like who pays when developers damage wildlife and public lands, red wolves, wild drilling out Great Sand Dunes and more.

]]>You can amplify the impact of your efforts to protect the environment! Just share any (or all) of these social media posts and spread the word on important issues like who pays when developers damage wildlife and public lands, red wolves, wild drilling out Great Sand Dunes and more.

]]>Red wolves are running out of timehttps://environmental-action.org/blog/red-wolves-are-running-out-of-time/
Thu, 26 Jul 2018 16:51:25 +0000https://environmental-action.org/?p=4449The red wolves of North Carolina are some of the most endangered animals on the planet. Can you help support our work to save them?

The Threat to Read Wolves
No more than 35 red wolves roam the forests of North Carolina, struggling to recover from the systematic hunting that nearly erased them from the face of the earth forever.

The Threat to Read Wolves

No more than 35 red wolves roam the forests of North Carolina, struggling to recover from the systematic hunting that nearly erased them from the face of the earth forever.

It’s terrible, but hunting red wolves could very well become legal again. The Fish and Wildlife Service’s new management plan would shrink their protected habitat to a single reserve, and make it legal to kill any wolf that steps over the boundary for any reason.1

We only have until July 30th to convince them not to go through with this disastrous plan. Donate today to support red wolf conservation and our work on other environmental campaigns.

The reduced protected habitat in the Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) plan can only support up to 15 wolves. If the plan goes through, more than half of the wild red wolves left in the world could be legally hunted.2

How Your Can Help

Fear of wolves can be pervasive among those who share the land with these misunderstood predators, but the fact is, wolves belong on the landscape. Wolves are not only beautiful, but also perform vital ecological services in their habitat. With so few red wolves left in the wild, those that remain can’t afford a management scheme that leaves them vulnerable.

Your support is vital to our work, including defense of some of our nation’s most vulnerable species.

When we work together, we know we can make a difference for wolves. Gray wolves have faced downgrades to their protected status that we have successfully defeated before. This past spring, we rallied tens of thousands of members to call and email their senators to preserve gray wolf protections that were on the chopping block — and we won. But red wolves are running out of time.

Great Sand Dunes National Park: An American Treasure

Have you ever heard of — or visited — Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado? It’s a place where…

Epic sand dunes tower as tall as skyscrapers.

Sandhill cranes can be seen in the spring and fall. And at least six species of insects found there — including the beautiful Great Sand Dunes tiger beetle — exist nowhere else in the world.

More than 300,000 people annually enjoy one of North America’s most unique wild places.1

More Dirty Drilling Nearby?

Under a new Trump Administration proposal, oil and gas companies could begin drilling on up to 18,000 acres near this national treasure — and next to the Sangre de Cristo Wilderness Area.

This area contains some of America’s most pristine wilderness and headwaters.The administration’s proposal is an idea that risks the health of this important area and the wildlife and others who rely on it.2

Noise and disruption from drilling operations can disrupt and destroy wildlife habitat. And drilling raises the very real prospect of a toxic spill in this vital watershed.

How Your Can Help

Should we…

Industrialize our beautiful public lands — and the home of six species found nowhere else on the planet — for the sake of fossil fuel companies?

Threaten local water supplies with waste from drilling and fracking operations?

Destroy our public lands just to double down on dirty fossil fuels that can cause toxic spills and make climate change worse?

The answer is clear: we owe it to future generations to be responsible stewards of irreplaceable places like Great Sand Dunes National Park and the wild areas nearby.

Officials at the Bureau of Land Management have already postponed a drilling lease sale planned for September at the Navajo Nation’s request.3

]]>Red wolves need your help. Will you take action?https://environmental-action.org/action/red-wolves-need-help/
Sun, 22 Jul 2018 15:01:34 +0000https://environmental-action.org/?p=4434The Fish and Wildlife service is declaring open season on the last 35 wild red wolves. Please take action to save them.

The Threat to Red Wolves
Until now, hunting and killing of these rare animals has been strictly forbidden. But the Fish and Wildlife Service just announced a new plan that would shrink the wolves’ protected habitat to only one refuge, […]

The Threat to Red Wolves

Until now, hunting and killing of these rare animals has been strictly forbidden. But the Fish and Wildlife Service just announced a new plan that would shrink the wolves’ protected habitat to only one refuge, leaving red wolves almost nowhere to hide.1

Even with protection, wild red wolf numbers have dwindled. Over 80 red wolves were shot and killed illegally between 1988 and 2013, and today only a few dozen remain.2

Without legal protection, even more wolves will certainly end up being hunted — and there are precious few left to lose. The reduced protected area is only capable of supporting 15 wolves, and if those cross the refuge’s border, even they would be in danger.3

How You Can Help

The red wolf was already declared extinct in the wild once, in 1980. Today’s wild red wolves represent a stunningly rare second chance for this unique and beautiful species, and they’ve beaten the odds thanks to the protection they’ve received.4

The Fish and Wildlife Service has the power to keep protecting these irreplaceable animals and save them from extinction in the wild again, but only if they say no to this catastrophic management plan. We need to tell them that the red wolf’s natural habitat should remain a safe place for wolves to live and thrive.